Club says slugger violated CBA; baseball to ramp up investigation

The Alex Rodriguez debacle is getting to the point where his involvement in the Biogenesis scandal is the side show to larger issues between the superstar third baseman and the New York Yankees.

Speaking on Mike Francesa’s WFAN radio show Wednesday afternoon, Dr. Michael Gross, chief of orthopedics at Hackensack Medical Center in New Jersey, said he examined A-Rod and found no quad strain. This, of course, directly contradicts what the Yankees are saying. Team physician Dr. Chris Ahmad diagnosed the rehabbing slugger with a Grade 1 (mild) strain, which kept Rodriguez from joining the big-league club in Texas to start this week.

If Gross' diagnosis is accurate and if A-Rod doesn’t have an injury that would keep him off the field, it would seem to confirm the rumors that the team doesn’t want the controversial star around. This, despite the fact that the Yankees are severely hurting at third base; Luiz Cruz had started 10 of the past 14 games at the hot corner, but he went on the disabled list Wednesday afternoon. David Adams, a rookie who has hit .190 in 35 games in the majors this season, was called up to take Cruz’s place.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman on Wednesday evening issued an icy statement in which he referred to A-Rod several times as "Mr. Rodriguez" and said that Rodriguez violated baseball's collective bargaining agreement.

"Contrary to the Basic Agreement, Mr. Rodriguez did not notify us at any time that he was seeking a second opinion from any doctor with regard to his quad strain," Cashman said in the statement (via The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.) "

Cashman added that the team will re-evaluate Rodriguez on Thursday in Tampa, Fla. He said the team's goal is "to return him to the lineup as soon as he is medically capable of doing so.”

Rodriguez's choice of Gross also may cost him in his ongoing battle with Major League Baseball as it investigates whether Rodriguez used performance-enhancing drugs.

According to the Daily News, Gross was reprimanded by New Jersey's attorney general and fined $30,000 in February for "failing to adequately ensure proper patient treatment involving the prescribing of hormones including steroids, at Active Health and Wellness Center LLC," a clinic Gross operates. Gross also was ordered to complete an ethics course.

Gross told SportsNet New York that the reprimand was not related to Rodriguez and that Rodriguez has never been a patient of the clinic.

Rodriguez’s rehab stint included stops with four teams—Class A, Class A-advanced, Class AA and Class AAA—over 13 games. He hit .200 with a pair of homers and a .625 OPS.

The Yankees opened play Wednesday seven games behind the Boston Red Sox in the American League East and 3 1/2 games out of the second wild-card spot.